And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson.  When she woke in the morning it was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world.  The nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a little absurd.  Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what she had to do.  That “old, unhappy, far-off thing” lurking in the innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her.  She would look it calmly in the face, and put it finally—­for ever—­away.  But of her marriage she would tell everything—­everything!—­to George Ellesborough, and he should deal with her as he pleased.

* * * * *

The day was misty and still.  October, the marvellous October of this year, was marching on.  Every day, Foch on the battlefield of France and Belgium was bringing down the old Europe, and clearing the ground for the new.  In English villages and English farms, no less than in the big towns, there was ferment and excitement, though it showed but little.  Would the boys be home by Christmas—­the sons, the brothers, the husbands?  What would the change be like—­the life after the war?  If there were those who yearned and prayed for it—­there were those who feared it.  The war had done well for some, and hideously for others.  And all through the play of individual interests and desires, and even in the dullest minds there ran the intoxicating sense of Victory, of an England greater and more powerful than even her own sons and daughters had dared to dream—­an England which knew herself now, by the stern test of the four years’ struggle, to be possessed of powers and resources, spiritual, mental, physical, which amazed herself.  In all conscious minds, brooding on the approaching time, there rose the question:  “What are we going to do with it?” and even in the unconscious, the same thought was present, as a vague disturbing impulse.

Janet had just read the war telegrams to Rachel, who had come down late, complaining of a headache; but when Janet—­the reserved and equable Janet—­after going through the news of the recapture of Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Bruges, broke into the passionate, low-spoken comment:  “The Lord is King—­be the people never so unquiet!” or could not, for tears, finish the account of the entry into recaptured Lille, and the joy of its inhabitants, Rachel sat irresponsive—­or apparently so.

How would it affect Ellesborough—­this astounding news?  Would it take him from her the sooner, or delay his going?  That was all she seemed capable of feeling.